The invention relates generally to an electronic musical instrument.
More particularly, the invention relates to an electronic musical instrument of the type having keys which are manipulated in order to generate tones.
A known electronic musical instrument has a main or primary system which includes a main or primary bus as well as a main or primary computer connected with the bus. The primary computer comprises a microprocessor and a memory. The primary bus has various conductors for the transmission of tone information, addressing signals and control signals. One or more voice modules are connected with the primary computer via the primary bus. The instrument has input means such as keys for the generation of tones and digital and/or analog control elements. The input means emits input signals representing the parameters of desired tones and these input signals are delivered to the primary computer. The voice module or modules generate various tones depending upon which elements of the input means are activated.
In one conventional electronic musical instrument of this type, the formation of a tone by a voice module involves a point-by-point combination of stored digital data to generate a digital signal which is subsequently converted to an analog signal. The digital data are either stored in the memory as a table or are derived from calculations performed by the computer. If a large number of tones, e.g. in excess of ten tones, are to be generated simultaneously, the memory becomes very large and the processing speed of the microprocessor is no longer sufficient for all of the tones to be acoustically correct.